Darrell Issa not joining calls for Eric Holder to quit over ‘Fast and Furious’

Darrell Issa not joining calls for Eric Holder to quit over ‘Fast and Furious’

Source: Wash. Post

A chief congressional critic of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. declined Friday to join Republican calls for Holder’s resignation over the Operation Fast and Furious gun-trafficking sting, saying the operation’s failures were “not about any one person.’’

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) had told Holder in an Oct. 10 letter: “You own Fast and Furious. It is your responsibility.’’ Numerous other Republicans have urged Holder to resign over the Phoenix-based sting, in which agents allowed guns to flow illegally onto U.S. streets and into Mexico. Holder has made it clear that he is not stepping down.

On Friday, Issa said at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor that Fast and Furious “is not about Eric Holder . . . it’s about a failure that seems to be pervasive within Justice.’’ Issa, who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that is investigating Fast and Furious, vowed to pursue what he called a “coverup” by the Justice Department, along with reforms at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Issa’s comments came as the Justice Department turned over more than 1,000 pages of documents Friday to congressional investigators about the gun-trafficking operation. Fast and Furious, which began in 2009, is also under investigation by Justice’s inspector general. It allowed small-time straw purchasers to pass firearms to middlemen, who trafficked the guns to Mexico.

9. FandF is another in a long line of BS that only exists because the left ignores talk radio

the right gets to have it both ways- bush can start the thing and then then 100 radio stations can scream about it as something obama's responsible for and even a lot of uninformed progressives believe the bullshit because it has been pounded into the countryside by 1000 coordinated radio stations to 50 mil a week for months- just as single payer was defeated with lies and myths long before obama ever got near the senate.

Supposedly, the idea was to let the guns "walk" across the border in order to trace their sale in Mexico--except that they had no way of tracking them, and didn't even tell the Mexican government they were doing this. For that matter, they don't even know that all or most of the weapons went to Mexico, since some have shown back up in the US.

As to motivation, given how incompetent the whole tracking effort was, it's widely suspected that somebody at the ATF was salting the find as an excuse to talk up what a problem smuggling was, and ask for more money and powers in order to combat it.

20. Obviously bush sucks, but no, fast and furious and WR were by no means the same - and this proves it

Headlined "Meeting of the attorney general with Mexican Attorney General Medina Mora," the briefing paper informed Mukasey that the tactic had been tried unsuccessfully but that the ATF wanted to try again and wanted Mukasey to persuade Mexico's attorney general to provide a team of corruption-free Mexican agents who would assist in the effort. Perhaps implied but not fully detailed in this document was the reason for the failure _ that Mexican authorities south of the border fell down on the job, claiming they didn't see the vehicle carrying the guns that the ATF agents had alerted them to.

ATF attempted to follow the suspected traffickers to learn who they were dealing with.

ATF informed Mexican authorities about the traffickers or the guns headed their way.

ATF informed their own agents in Mexico about the traffickers or the guns.

Whereas under fast and furious we have:

Soon the scandalous truth came out. It was so shocking that the atf agents couldn’t believe it. When it proved out, they were profoundly embarrassed about their country. They were deeply apologetic to their Mexican counterparts. They scrambled to distance themselves from what had happened. “I hope they understand that this was kept secret from most of the atf, including me and my colleagues in Mexico,” said Darren Gil, the atf attaché to Mexico.

Gil said when he first queried ATF officials in Phoenix, where the program was run, they told him the bare minimum. According to Gil, George Gillett Jr., then the acting special agent in charge, said, "We have an ongoing investigation…. Thanks for calling."

He also questioned ATF headquarters in Washington, Gil said, and was told, "They have it under control."

As he learned what had gone wrong, Gil said, he realized that ATF officials did not want Pascual to know about the operation, and that ATF feared the Mexican government would find out and lodge a formal complaint.

Gil recalled "screaming and yelling" with his Washington superiors. "It's inconceivable to me to even allow weapons to knowingly cross an international border," he said.

Gil and Canino said they later were advised that senior ATF leaders, including acting Director Kenneth Melson, as well as Department of Justice officials and the U.S. attorney's office in Phoenix, all had approved Fast and Furious. Melson said it was "providing some good intelligence" on gun smuggling.

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